Join institutional investors, analysts and strategists from the world's largest banks: Subscribe today
Already have an account? log in
Gold’s Best Rally In Years Puts ‘Fringe Idea’ In Trump’s Lap
Gold. What can you say about it? It looks like the sun. So... maybe it's a god?
That was the investment case for earlier versions of humans, and frankly, I'm not sure the underlying rationale's changed much over the millennia.
The gold bugs among you will scoff and ask me how much a can of Coke costs today in dollars versus a long time ago, and then you'll do the same math for gold, your point being that gold's a time-tested store of value, whereas the dollar's just worthless scrip.
I'll poin
A hefty portion of the volume on the buy side has been by foreign central banks, especially China. They noted how the US froze Russian US Dollar reserves and wish to keep some other sources of liquidy. To finance goods imports and such in a pinch.
SORRY H, You are wrong. There is gold demand – sure some is idiotic but some is industrial and some is fear driven. And there is a cost of production. Maybe gold has no ‘scare’ value in back country South Carolina but it does in thousands of places around the world. You are doing nothing other than identifying yourself as one of the coddled naive Americans . Trump is changing some people’s tunes, I hope it doesn’t change yours or mine. By the way gold saved a lot of lives in our Civil War. BUT As a floor trader, one of my favorite sayings was “we’d trade shit as long as it stuck to the wall.” We trade cyrpto and it doesn’t even exist. At least gold is shiny, and……
John, about half the time (read: most of the time), I can’t extract a coherent line of reasoning from your comments. This one’s a good example.
Musk promoting streaming the Fort Knox “audit”, hmmm
A nod to Rand Paul and all the MAGAlytes who believe that there actually is no gold held at Fort Knox.
And I thought all of you at the office were smart…if you only think of a bar of gold as a shiny doorstop then consider buying the mining stocks. The best gold producer in the world, Agnico Eagle Mines is up 100% over the last year. Southern Cross Gold 232%. Orla Mining 100%. Discovery Silver 146%. They are speeding ahead of Tesla %78 and have a better view of reality than Meta 55%.
I’ll write back in a year with a recap to prove my point.
Miners have always been a popular way to invest in gold, That started back when US citizens were proscribed from owning physical bullion. In more recent times, they are seen as a high-octane derivative play on the metal. Especially the “junior” miners.
A word to the newbies – be sure to find out how much each miner as pre-sold forward, That’s often a requirement for loans or other borrowings. Try not to learn the hard way that miner has already sold 75% or more of a year’s projected output at much lower prices!
Mining stocks are highly speculative, and so is physical silver for that matter.
This may seem silly, but I’m 80, feeling old and hope I won’t be back to read the update.
That’s just great. I’ve spent the afternoon trying to help or at least console a friend whose world is imploding on itself. And now I read this! Don’t you give a damn about ME Lucky One??
With your wife already gone, who can argue with you?
It does suck when you hit an age when it hits you that it’s all downhill from there, doesn’t it? Some fight it, some accept it.
I’ll refrain from saying “hang in there my online friend” and give you a respectful nod instead.
…that makes one of us, Mr. lucky…after the depression of the election set in about a week or so afterwards, I realized and started the process of reevaluating and transforming how I planned to go about living, persevering,etc…it’s still a process…wholehearted encouragement to you and yours…I just hope you don’t have to cut out your enjoyment of red meat, but I worry about the risks with food inspection likely being gutted in order to pay off the bitter billionaires …
I have owned some gold since the 1990’s when it was around $300 an ounce. While it can serve as a hedge against inflation, it is not a good investment. It earns no interest, pays no dividends, and you pay a premium whenever you buy or sell it (meaning they clip you going both ways). In the mean time you must pay to store it somewhere like a safe deposit box. When you buy it at $300 an ounce, and sell it for over $2,900, it sounds good, but keep in mind it took thirty-years to get there. (Think of what you could have made with Apple stock during that same span.)
After the Great Depression, and WWII, owning gold likely made more sense. My grandfather never trusted banks or the market after The Great Depression. Modern prices tend to rise during periods of inflation, dollar weakness, and whenever “preppers” sense impending doom. (Gold had a nice run in the late 70’s-early 80’s for example.) Of course when prices rise, gold gets more attention, and “gold bugs” get excited about the chance to cash-in their some of their long held assets.
Yeah, and I like that I essentially told everyone I keep 8%-10% of my assets in gold (the implication from the article was 10%, but when it drifts up past 9% I trim it or rebalance), and the takeaway from some readers was, “H hates gold because he made a joke or two about it.”
How many readers, I wonder, have 8%-10% of their assets in gold? I mean, some, probably. But I bet not most.
This reminds me of 2021 when I was writing a ton on Web3 and DeFi and I’d get passersby chiding me for being a Luddite, when I’d just spent three months and tens of thousands of dollars on crypto and NFTs.
It’s true that I have a snarky view of gold, crypto and all sorts of other assets that aren’t equities and fixed income, but I own some of pretty much everything. Hell, I even had a comic book collection for the longest time, and I held onto an unopened, factory-sealed box of 1992 Marvel Masterpiece trading cards foreeeever. They never ended up being worth much, but dammit, those were some awesome cards.
H-Man, Occam’s razor suggests that to “hell in a handbasket” is the best explanation for the rise in gold. Sorta like an emergency parachute.
Sell gold into the market slowly and use the dollars to refill the strategic oil reserve, firming up crude prices and encouraging more exploration and drilling. Ought to help in the midterm elections. Surely someone is thinking this.
I get where gold is rising because of Trump uncertainty, hell in a handbasket, etc. but why has volatility not moved up meaningfully?
I have a nice folder of worthless mining stock certificates that I inherited from my grandfather. He and his dad had a small brokerage trading on the Amex until they went bust in 1933. My favorite is “The Great Belcher and Bullwacker Mining Company.
For those who have gold (I was trying for 50k once when it was at $1200 but I couldn’t get anyone to sell it to me for a decent price so I stopped. I once had fellow C-suite executive. He as hooked on collecting, anything with fluctuating value. Gold coins were a special goal. This guy was the operating VP for our family business and knew ever worker in our factory. One rainy Sunday in 1973 he gets a call from one of his workers who said he had a big money problem and he had some gold. No body wanted his gold (at that time selling for just over $100 an oz. He told my co-worker he knew he collected coins and would he buy some of it. My friend asked how many coins he had and the guy said he had 100 1 oz coins. My friend said he didn’t have enough cash, how much do you want for them. The factory worker said these is $20 each so I need $2000 for all of them. My friend gagged and ask if the guy knew they worth a lot more. They guy said, maybe but the guy I owe wants cold hard cash, so I need the $2k. My friend said OK, I got enough, meet me in the parking lot at the plant in an hour. The guy brought a sack of 105 gold coins and got his cash. My friend gave him a coin for a souvenir. and went home with 20k in gold which was up 60% the next year. With gold, sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bear eats you. True story. Never was my kind of luck.